


Ersatz Conviction

by Downfall



Series: Prophet and Harbinger [6]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Blood, Dark, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Gen, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Downfall/pseuds/Downfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alyna wastes no tools.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ersatz Conviction

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from the Dragon Age kink meme.

“Hello Ser Pounce-a-Lot! Did you catch a mouse? You did!”

The cat ignored him, all attention focused on the tiny rodent as it tried to escape. Anders didn’t envy it; the Ser Pounce-a-Lot never let it get more than a few feet before leaping on it again, biting and tossing it into the air.

“Don’t you feed that thing enough?” Anders turned to see Alyna Surana, Commander of the Grey scowling at him disapprovingly. Really nothing unusual. Pretty much everyone looked at him disapprovingly.

“Oh, I like to let him have a bit of fun every now and then. It’s not an easy life, being a cat.”

Alyna shook her head in irritation. “I need to speak with you in my office.” She thought a moment. “Bring the cat.”

“We’re not in trouble, are we?” The elf didn’t answer him, only gesturing him to follow her down the hall. She wasn’t the same withdrawn woman he’d known in the Tower. Back then she’d been useless and timid, but nowadays she was the sort that he’d actually follow, and he didn’t follow _anyone_ , let alone when they kept sending him into near-fatal situations. She waved her hand at the door to her office, briefly subduing her wards she’d placed on it, and directed him to one of the chairs near the fireplace.

“I have a mission for you,” she said simply. “You’re not going to like it, but I need you to do it.”

“Any chance of help?” he asked glibly.

“I need to stay at Vigil’s Keep. And the others…”

“Right, right. Velanna disappeared to be with the Dalish, Sigrun finally ran off to die in the Deep Roads -and great job you did stopping her, by the way-”

“It was her choice.”

“Of course. But with Oghren back in Orgrimmar and Justice where ever Justice went…” Anders petted Ser Pounce-a-Lot thoughtfully. “I hope whatever task you have is easy.”

Alyna sat in the chair across from him, steepling her hands. “I want you to destroy the Chantry.”

“You…what?”

“Destroyed. Wiped out. I want to remove the Chantry as a power in Thedas.”

Anders stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “Are you serious? Having a joke at my expense? Why would we possibly want to destroy the Chantry? And how?”

The elf shrugged. “Make up whatever reason you need to motivate yourself for ‘why.’ ‘How’ is up to your discretion as well, though I have one advantage I will lend you.” Anders was torn between fleeing the clearly crazy woman before him and seeing what she possibly thought she was offering him. She reached into a small chest on her desk and drew from it a swirling, lyrium-blue crystal.

“What is that?”

“Justice,” she answered simply. “As near as I can understand, he left Kristoff’s body when it finally decayed too much to be of use. I snared him as he tried to return to the Fade.”

“That’s…that’s horrible! Let him go, right now!”

Alyna rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Shut up, Anders.”

“No! Justice is…was…is? A sentient creature! You can’t just stuff him in a gem and-”

“ _SHUT UP, ANDERS_.” The force behind her voice hit him like a hammer and Anders sat back, stunned by it. “Better. I told you that you weren’t going to like it, and I told you that you were going to do it anyway.” Ser Pounce-a-Lot had leapt down from Anders’ lap, and now huddled in the corner hissing at Alyna. “First things first,” she said. “I learned this trick from Greagoir.” She gestured at him, and Anders felt the Veil ripple around her…then the very mana drain away from his body.

“No,” he managed to hiss.

The elf produced a thin knife and sliced open the front of Anders’ robe, and he had a flash of recollection; Ser Pounce-a-Lot playing with his mouse. She began to cut patterns in his chest and belly; whirls and abstract designs, surrounded by letters in a script that hadn’t been written in Ferelden for millennia. “Avernus taught me many things,” she commented idly. “One of which was how to store the life energy of a person, long after their dead. Which is fortunate for you, as this ritual requires far more energy than any one person could ever muster.”

Anders force out words. “The murdered patrols…?”

“Yes, from our ‘bandit raids.’ They were quite useful. I need more just a bit more, Anders. Don’t worry, you’ll live.”

Her dagger cut deep into the muscle of his stomach, and Anders found he didn’t even have the energy to cry out. “You’re…an abomination.” She twisted the blade as she dragged it up until it nicked rib. This time Anders did cry out, but it was a poor, weak thing.

“Hardly.” She left the knife sticking gruesomely from his side as she stepped back to examine her work, absently wiping her bloody hands on her robe. Anders could hear a rushing in his ears, quickly receding. It was his life, he realized. His life was fading away.

Alyna motioned towards him, and a red haze emerged from him hovering over them both. With a gesture she brought forth haze from a stack of enchanted stones on her desk; the life-force of the slaughtered guards, he realized. Blood magic hadn’t ever been something Anders dealt in, he’d never been _that_ desperate, but even someone deaf to magic could have felt the surge of the immense amount of power that Alyna had casually gathered overhead. She produced the crystal containing Justice, murmuring incantations, but a sharp hiss brought her short. She glared down to where Ser Pounce-a-Lot spat furiously at her. “Hmm.”

She scooped the cat up with one hand around the neck, ignoring or not noticing the cat’s desperate clawing. If anything, the wounds it inflicted only added to the miasma above. “Please,” Anders pleaded. “I’ll do what you want. Just…leave him alone. I’ll do what you want.”

For a moment a look of genuine sympathy crossed Alyna’s face. “I’m sorry, Anders. He makes you soft, and I can’t allow anything that makes my weapons soft. If it’s some mercy, I’ll leave you a more pleasant memory.” She tightened her grip, waiting for the cat’s struggles to cease as the power above thrummed. Anders closed his eyes as she dropped the corpse.

Alyna lifted Justice’s crystal, holding it into the cloud of raw power. The energy drained into the crystal, casting ugly azure light across the office. Lowering the radiant crystal, Alyna knelt before Anders. “Remember this, Anders,” she said lowly. “ _You must destroy the Chantry_.” She placed the crystal in his lap and pulled the dagger from his side, stepping back to watch.

It happened in an instant; the gleam from the crystal faded and Anders jerked forward in his chair, wounds healed, his eyes shimmering with blue energy that spread across his whole body. He screamed, wordlessly, staggering to his feet. “What have you **How have I been trapped again** _done to me_?! What is that voice in my mind?” Alyna spent the last of her energies wrapping a spell around his mind, their minds, with only one command: _flee_. Anders turned and bolted for the door.

Alyna collapsed into her chair, exhausted to the core. It would only take a few weeks before her imperatives to Anders became completely irresistible, and when he finally acted it would be as the strike of a flint across dry tinder. Already Genitivi’s Andrastians were cropping up in cults across Ferelden, and the Chantry was beginning to take more and more drastic actions. Anora had written to Vigil’s Keep in desperation, seeking advice and something more. The stage was set; now she waited for Urthemiel to return to her.


End file.
